Reinstall Academic Licence after Windows clean reinstall

[Ron157F]

Hi:

I recently had to do a clean reinstall of Windows 10 on my PC.  I am using both Photoshop Elements 2020 and Premiere Elements 2020 on that PC and have Academic licences for versions of both.  After reinstalling each, I was asked to enter the serial numbers - which I have.  However, the serial number seems not to be accepted as I keep getting sent back to the "enter the serial number screen".  Does anyone know how I can reinstall the serial number  so that the software will run under licence?

Thanks.

[John T Smith · Accepted solution]

Without posting numbers in a public forum, so you have 6 groups of 4 numbers with no letters?

Did you DE-activate before, to release your serial number activation count?

[Ron157F]

Hi John:

Thanks for the quick reply.  I appreciate your interest and help.

Yes, that's the format of the serial numbers.  On my verification request, I have serial numbers for both the "Win" version and the "MLP" version.  The source DVDs are for the standalone "Win" versions of both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements.

Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to de-activate the software before I had to rebuild the PC.  Microsoft visited a BSOD experience on me like I have not seen before - in my almost 40 years of working with PCs.  Very frustrating.  However, not quite as frustrating as dealing with Adobe's insanely protective approaches to their software.  'Nuff said about that.

Can I log in to my Products listing in my Adobe account and de-activate the software for a single PC?  If so, I can easily do that.

I appreciate your help.

Thanks.

[John T Smith]

When you can't deactivate a serial number
BE SURE TO ONLY ASK FOR ACTIVATION SUPPORT TO ADJUST YOUR ACTIVATION COUNT
You may need to PERSIST or TRY AGAIN to find a support agent with more experience
Click here https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/support.html

-click the chat icon at the bottom right of the page to open a chat session
-the chat icon looks like '3 dots inside a circle' at the lower right
-type AGENT into the chat window to connect directly to a person rather than the AI
Do be aware that Adobe's staffing is impacted by the virus, so wait times are long
.
Also: beware of answering anyone who sends you a private message
-click for more information about scammers https://tinyurl.com/10791730

[Ron157F]

Hi:

I did finally get my activation fixed and brought up to date.  Thank you,John T Smith, for the suggestions.  Your suggestion of contacting Adobe Tech Support was the approach that eventually worked.  There was no unreasonable delay in their response and their tech Support people seemed well-informed, competent, and responded well.

It took an on-line chat session that was open over a three-day period, with three different Adobe Tech Support persons, and involved two separate remote screen-sharing sessions during that time.  The first Tech Support person did successfully deactivate my software and asked me to try to reactivate both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements.  That part of the process was not successful and, after about an hour, I needed to disconnect from the chat session.  I reconnected to the same chat session (that was convenient and a good idea for continuity) the next day and the next Tech Support Person and I spent about an hour before he suggested that I try signing in to my PC using a different admin account and activate the software using that account.  (I have three admin-level accounts on that PC - one is the account I usually use and which would not successfully activate the software, one is associated with my Microsoft account ID, and one is the OS Admin account.)  I disconnected from the chat again and signed in with my Microsoft ID account.  This last approach is the one that worked.  I tested the software with my other acocunts on that PC and then reconnected with the chat and indicated that the problem was solved. I have no idea why it took a different admin-level account to solve this - especially one that is not associated with my Adobe ID.  However, it's all fixed and the PEPE software works with both user accounts on my PC.

The one remaining challenge is that my adobe media catalog had to be rebuilt as the one that was restored during my system reinstall process was declared corrupt by PEPE once I got it running. 

This entire experience seemed to me to indicate that Adobe's license activation approach is overly complex.  If I'm the only one having this challenge, that's only a problem for me - and, they solved it.  However, if there are other customers who are occupying three or four hours of  Adobe's Tech Support time over a three-day period to solve a simple problem, that is an avoidable expense for them that could be significant.  I spent about 3 hours trying to solve this myself before accessing this forum and then it took John T Smith's post to encourage me to reach out to Adobe.  So, overall this one, relatively simple, technical problem required about 4 days, 4 different people, 3 chat sessions, and 2 shared screen sessions to solve.  Seems like overkill to me.  (This brief assessment of course does not credit Microsoft with the initial BSOD frustrations that led to all this.  That was certainly out of Adobe's control.)

Thanks everyone for your help.